Agreement
Reached on Line H Dispute and Q & A

On May 12, 2017, the Postal Service and the
Maintenance Division of the APWU signed an agreement resolving a
national level dispute in case number Q15T-4Q-C 17274095. The issue in
the case is “the determination of compliance with item 6 of the July
9, 2014 TL-5 MOU”.

Selection
from the In-Service Register

(This article first appeared in the July-August
2017 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

By Maintenance Craft Directors

We have noticed an uptick in the use of maintenance craft in-service
registers. This makes it a good time to point out the in-service
register “pecking order” on page 280 of the 2012 Joint Contract
Interpretation Manual (JCIM). It is entitled Order for Filling
Maintenance Craft Positions and gives a specific process for how our
posted duty assignments are awarded.

Our in-service registers are used after the in-craft Preferred
Assignment Register (PAR) and Promotion Eligibility Register (PER) are
exhausted. Aside from the possible application of an individual retreat
right due to prior Article 12 action, the next step to fill the vacancy
should be to check for a transfer request from a Maintenance employee,
as explained in item 7 of the “pecking order.” Assuming there are no
existing transfer requests by a current Maintenance Craft employee, or
all requests are completed, the inservice register comes into play.

This register of applicants is made up of employees who have taken
the Exam 955 and were found eligible on the review panel interview. The
registers are for specific Maintenance Craft positions, which are
authorized for the installation. These positions are covered under the
Maintenance Selection System (MSS). Handbook EL-304 has a detailed
section on this process and on establishing and maintaining in-service
registers. In-service registers may include bargaining unit employees
from any craft within the installation. There is a specific order of
consideration depending on their bargaining unit.

Maintenance Craft employees are ranked first priority, although to be
on the in-service register a Maintenance employee must not be on, or
have applied for, the incraft PER for that position.
After Maintenance Craft employees, all other APWU represented employees
are listed as next priority. Employees with the least advantage and
ranking on the in-service register are employees not in the APWU
bargaining unit, who have been rated eligible for that position.
Within these groups, eligible employees are ranked in score order. After
the inservice register is exhausted, transfer requests from craft
employees in other installations are considered.

Detailed for Training

One more thing must be noted regarding the filling of vacant
Maintenance positions, when a non-Maintenance employee is selected from
the in-service register, that employee may be detailed to the position
for training prior to the assignment’s start date. Page 287 of the
JCIM plainly states:

Q: May an employee selected from an in-service register be placed
into that position prior to the date (PS Form 50) of the new assignment?

A: Yes. An employee may be detailed to the position for training
purposes for up to a two-week period ending with the reassignment.

This means a couple of things have occurred. The primary thing is
that the individual is in fact selected from the in-service register.